Friday, May 16, 2008

Eric Pickles is My Twin

After a six hour journey, and an exhausting day, I have finally got home from Crewe. The day did not get off to a good start, when my Telegraph TV Camerawoman Debra and I arrived in the town centre to find that Miss Great Britain had taken to her bed. Interview number one cancelled. We then did some Vox Pops in the street, showing voters four Labour election leaflets, which are among the most disgraceful I have ever seen. All they did was thrown cheap personal abuse at the Conservative candidate in the most purile and idiotic manner. John Harris had it right, when he described New Labour as the new 'nasty party' in the Guardian. Anyway, we interviewed about 25 people and most of them were appalled by the leaflets. Out of the 25, six were committed Labour voters who intended to go to the polling station next Thursday and vote Tory. Two more said they had only voted Labour because of Gwyneth Dunwoody, but wouldn't be doing so again. I don't pretend this was a representative sample.

We then interviewed William Hague, Edward Timpson and the chairman of the local Tory Party, Donald Potter. I take back what I said yesterday about not seeing any posters. Nantwich and the surrounding roads and plastered with Tory posters, in exactly the sort of houses which in previous by elections would have been plastered with LibDem posters.

The other interview was with Eric Pickles, who has been masterminding the Tory campaign. After we had finished someone came up to me and started asking me about the campaign and what was going to happen in the next few days. Bizarrely, this person had mistaken ME for Eric Pickles! I ask you. Mrs Pickles, I suspect, would not be a happy lady.

So, after a day and a half what do I make of things in Crewe & Nantwich? I'd make the following points...

The Conservative campaign is the best organised I have ever seen

The number of people pouring into the constituency to help has to be seen to be believed

I didn't see a single LibDem or Labour campaigner on the streets in the entire time I was there

The level of personal dissastisfaction with Gordon Brown is palpable

There is a level of disgust at the Labour campaign

It's the first time I have heard the phrase: 'I've voted Labour all my life, but...' since the days of Margaret Thatcher

Press interest in this by election is huge

The lobby is split. Half believe the by election is in the bag for the Tories, half think it's too close to call

The Tory campaign is trying hard to manage expectations

Turnout will be crucial. The Tories have to get their vote out in the outlying villages & in Nantwich. If turnout is low in Crewe and high in Nantwich, it's good news for Edward Timpson

What happens to the LibDem vote us crucial. If they have given up (and decamped to Henley) it's not good news for the Tories. There is a type of Labour voter that will never vote Tory, but may vote LibDem to poke Brown in the nose.

If anyone is going to Crewe over the next week do visit an Italian restaurant called Giovanni's. It's the best meal I have eaten anywhere in many months. And the Premier Inn is highly recommended too!

All my interviews will be shown on Telegraph TV from Monday through to Thursday next week.

You will find visitors from all the main parties saying they've not seen each other and that they have 100s out. Could even all be right.

Dave Cameron masterminded the Howard campaign did he not? With all those dog whistles? And I've still not heard any Tory explain how local government campaigners for your party were also sticking out Hizb_ut-Tahrir leaflets ...

Even spotted you and Debra outside the Nantwich office while we were getting leaflets-she's a dab hand with the hand held. Good place to have a light lunch in Nantwich is in the bookshop near to the Nantwich office -good food and quick service. The book owner saw William Hague grabbed a copy of the Wilberforce book and got it signed for resale back in the shop!

Saw only one labour person and we thought their latest leaflet had been delivered by the postie as it was poorly shoved through the letter boxes.

Had to laugh at her slogan - "Vote Dunwoody -she's one of us", as none of the people in Crewe have ever lived in Wales before bagging a seat only on the strenght of her mother's coat tails.

Was the abuse as cheap and puerile as the Tories suggesting that Tamsin was only in it for the sympathy vote.No wonder the weather has been warm there, with all that spluttering faux indignation being puffed about.

I've heard the 'I've voted Labour all my life, but...' line twice in the last month or so, once from a cab driver and once from a friend who happens to be a policy wonk. Crewe and Nantwich is a fantastic spectator sport.

Either your weight loss is going much better than I'd realised, or Pickles is about three times the man I thought he was.

On an unrelated subject.I drove through London this evening on a regular route.Was it my imagination, or have all the traffic light cycles been speeded up?Has Boris been doing his stuff with the traffic engineers, lifting the curse of Ken and speeding everybody's journeys?

She gives her observations of the campaign, and tries to get a bit of a dig in, in line with current Labour tactics:

"The view, in Crewe at least, seems to be that local people want a local champion, someone who will stand up for them in parliament, who is in touch with their concerns and will deliver for them. In this Labour town, they're not convinced that the Tory candidate will do this. (Driving around campaigning in Bentleys isn't helping...)"

She's so keen to get a posh jibe in, but is completely ignorant of the fact that the Bentley factory is in Crewe!

The Mirror also made prats of themselves with the same class fueled story, and revealed at the same time they no nothing of the area at all!

Eugh, I just wrote a long comment and Blogger had a techie problem. My abridged version:

Check articles from a Labour PPC and the Daily Mirror which attempt the current "toff bashing" line from Labour, but which amusingly reveal instead a total ignorance of the fact that Bentley cars are made in Crewe.

Funny you mention the lack of presence from the other leading candidates on the streets of Crewe, someone said the same thing to me today. Seems Labour's bunch are only around now when the cameras are out (or is it the sunshine?).

I think after being continually harangued on the door step about their wonky policies and the 10p tax fiasco by a hostile public the canvassers have simply given up 'meeting the people'. Can't blame them I guess.

Clearly Labour are relying now on stuffing letterboxes with their 'dodgy dossiers' and little else. I have though noticed a sudden increase in noises on the internet from their hard-core supporters this past couple of days... obviously a symptom of idle hands!

Pleased to hear you had a good time in Crewe and Nantwich and look forward to your broadcasts.

Iain I `m glad you picked up on that article in the Guardian. I have been telling Hopi Sen that he ought to be ashamed of himself , he is actually up there stirring up anti Polish feeling in the face of all logic with this ‘Tories are soft on immigrants’ line they are disgracefully spinning . Add to that the transparent promotion of Gordon Brown`s survival over the nation’s interests and you have a very dirty by -election indeed from Labour.

I have always thought Simon Hughes running as the “Straight Choice For Bermondsey “ against Peter Tatchell was about the most invidious filth thrown in the air by anyone (ironically as it turned out ).

I wondered if the Tories should not be making more of the fact that Gordon Brown will not be visiting Crewe and Nantwich. After all I understand they wish to make this by-election into a referendum on Brown.

I remember reading about a senate race in the early 1980's which used a very subtle but effective tactic. It would involve plastering C&N with posters justing stating "Where's Gordon?". It would help highlight Brown as an issue in the campaign. The residents and visiting press would be able to ask Labour campaigners wheres Gordon and why is he not campaigning there. We saw on the YouTube video how reluctant Tamsin Dunwoody was when asked was Gordon Brown an asset.

"Today" on R4 this week covered the byelection - it was a joy to hear. Being the BBC they tried and tried to get members of the public to say they were going to vote Labour, and couldn't find one who would do so. The interviewer kept suggesting to one chap that "He was a Labour voter", man agrees, "Always been a Labour voter", man agrees again. Then the killer question "Are you going to vote Labour this time" - firm answer "I haven't decided"! Which rather sounded like a No, I thought.............

So the 'divine' leader has called upon his faithful storm-troopers, the Cabinet, to go over the top to die for him in Crewe, while he is safely behind lines up in Scotland grandstanding his 'vision' to the Kirk. I wonder what the Church fathers really think of him?

The edge that I have over Tamsin is that I do know what is going on (all year round) and know the area like the back of my hand and I'm involved with the whippets and meat pie classes and also the business community.

Jamie said... "I wondered if the Tories should not be making more of the fact that Gordon Brown will not be visiting Crewe and Nantwich. After all I understand they wish to make this by-election into a referendum on Brown."

There is a long-standing convention (broken only by Blair in 1997 and again in 1999) that PMs do not campaign at by-elections.

Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major never campaigned at by-elections when in office.

Eric Pickles gave a studio interview a few weeks ago. Strictly speaking he did not sit on the chair, better to say he was poured into it in a molten condition and forgot to say when.

You can look for similarities between the city of Paris and the village of Whitwell (East Midlands pop. 42). It seems a bit silly though, since continuous expansion over countless years has made Paris such a vast size compared to Whitwell.

Jafo at 10.50am. Sorry, my experience as a canvasser tells me that if someone says that they have always voted one way, but this time they haven't made up their mind, it means that they will almost certainly vote that way again.

Trouble is I still can't stand Donald Potter. He's the Cheshire Area Chairman and they're the ones who botched up the situation with Paul Offa in Chester and from various sources involved in trouble in Wirral South or West.

10:02am Anon "G Eagle esq - So - you speak German and so does Iain. Big deal...."

Also, Merhaba, Effendi Anon [Buon Giorno, Signor Anono]

C'est la, n'est-ce pas

Salve [Hi]

It is admitted that Iain SchPeaks Excellent Deutsch

and that is a big deal

but der incisive und sagacious Dave H (like the perceptive but kindly Iain) has penetrated this Eagle's Guilty Secret, that he only writes Germanisch und Doppel-Deutsch

However, though I flatter myself that Iain & I agree on so many things, apart of course from religion and some politics, but I rather think that Mrs Eagle would be surprised unless this Eagle chose a duller, Grayer choice of tie